Monday, June 30, 2014

6/30/14

Certainly one of the most dynamic and godly leaders in the Old Testament is Joseph.  For years I have delivered a leadership talk based on an overview his life.  From the time he was a young man of 17 years, he was profoundly influential in the lives of others.  He ascended from a pit to the palace in Egypt.  He was a prisoner who became the prime minister of the most significant country in the world at the time.  He rose from obscurity to notoriety.  What was the secret that enabled him to move up from the bottom of life’s barrel to the pinnacle of success?  What empowered him and propelled him from anonymity to celebrity?  There is a foundational trait revealed in chapters 37-50 of Genesis that marked Joseph’s life.  It is indispensible for any effective leader. 
 
Genesis 37:5 reveals, “Joseph had a dream.”  This dream was the key to his impactful leadership in that generation.  Okay, so how do you get a dream if you don’t have one?  How do you get a vision of how God might be at work in you and through you to influence others?  You open your heart to God in prayer and then you open your mind to the trustworthy counsel of others.
 
On Thursday and Friday, August 14 & 15, our church at Crossroads is a host site for the Global Leadership Summit.  The teaching and counsel offered by some very gifted presenters, who are also proven leaders in business, government, entertainment and the Church, has the potential to ignite a passionate dream in you.  I cannot think of an experience that would do more to allow the leader/influencer in you to rise up. 
 
This experience is available to our church family at our special pricing as a host site church… $79 for the two days.  Registration can be done online at cccgo.com.   You will come away from this event with a dream!

Blessings,
Pastor Ken

Monday, June 16, 2014

6/16/14

Someone has said that if anything is repeated often enough… even if it is a lie… it will be believed by many to be true.  This is certainly the case when it comes to divorce statistics.  For years now, we have heard about the 50 per cent divorce rate.  Some have asserted that the divorce rate is the same in the church.  LISTEN FRIENDS: THIS STATISTIC, REPORTED IN THE MEDIA AND REPRESENTED AS CONVENTIONAL WISDOM, IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE!  In fact, it is not even close to the truth.  Those who have shared this information in official communications and personal conversations are contributing to a deep sense of cultural discouragement about marriage.  It is discouragement that is based on a myth!
 
Half of all marriages are not ending in divorce.  According to the Census Bureau, 72 percent of those who have ever been married are still married to their first spouse!  And the 28 percent who aren’t includes everyone who was married for many years until a spouse died.  No one knows what the average first-marriage divorce rate is, but based on the rate of widowhood and other factors, we can estimate it is probably closer to 20-25 percent.  For all marriages [including second marriages] it is in the 31-35 percent range.
 
So-called expert demographers project that 40-50 percent of couples will get divorced – but it is important to remember that those are projections.  But, in fact, divorce rates continue to drop, not rise!  This good news, that most marriages last a lifetime, urgently needs to become conventional wisdom.  And the myth that must be debunked is the notion that the divorce rate is the same in the church.  The Barna Group studies focused on those with Christian and non-Christian belief systems and didn’t take worship attendance into account.  If a person was in church last week, their divorce rate dropped another 27 percent! Overall, regular church attendance lowers the divorce rate anywhere from 25-50 percent, depending on what study you looks at.  So as a pastor, I can confidently stand before our church and assert four truths:
 
1] “Faithfully attendance and involvement in church matters for your marriage!”
2] “Most people get through the hard times, and you can too.”
3] “Your liberal college professors who say, ‘Why bother getting married,’ and your impressionable young peers who are routinely living together have bought the lie.”
4] Divorce isn’t the greatest threat to marriage… discouragement is.”
  
Special thanks to Harvard-trained social researcher, Shaunti Feldman, for opening our eyes to the truth regarding marriage.
 
Special thanks to Andy Stanley for his new book, The Good News About Marriage, that sets the record straight.
 
Let’s talk it up.
 
Pray with me… Father God, all truth is Your truth, starting with Your Word and including the true truth that is out there in the marketplace today.  We know that Satan is the father of lies.  And his lies constantly seduce people to believe and practice that right is wrong and wrong is right.  If he can’t capture a soul with an assault on their morality, he will resort to his fallback strategy… discouragement.  We not ignorant of his ways and we resist him in the power of Jesus’ name.  Amen.

God Bless,
Pastor Ken

Monday, June 9, 2014

6/9/14

I am always amazed, but less often amused, by the way some people tend to create an afterlife in their own image or from their own imagination.  Even Ivy League-educated people will sometimes express the most speculative and cavalier attitudes toward the critical issue of where they are bound after death.  For example, USA Today reported a startling quote from Michael Bloomberg, the three-consecutive term Mayor of New York City and the 16th richest person in the world.  He was musing on the ‘pearly gates’ in a recent interview when he said, “I am telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed.  I am heading straight in.  I have earned my place.”  Though nobody knows exactly what goes on in heaven, it’s probably not like a New York City nightclub where you blow past the bouncer because you are a big deal, a high roller or a power broker with only a few peers. Bloomberg, even if only half serious, is in deep trouble with that attitude. 
 
James 4:6, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 
 
James 4:10, “Humble yourselves before the Lord; he will lift you up.”
 
Philippians 2:7,8,9-11, “[Jesus] made himself nothing…humbled himself… God exalted him to the highest place… that… every knee should bow… and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord…”
 
Pray with me… Father, the character trait You most desire to see in us is the one that was dynamically lived out by Jesus… from his birth in a barn to his death on a cross … It is humility.  We pray for a Bethlehem/Calvary core to our faith.  In Jesus’ name, amen.

Blessings,
Pastor Ken

6/2/14

There is a rather curious command in verse 7 of I Peter 3 that is related to both the domestic health of a marriage and the spiritual health of a husband.  “Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.”  This is not a difficult verse of scripture to understand.  It clearly states that if a husband is inconsiderate and disrespectful of his wife, he will have trouble with his prayer life.  His prayers will be hindered.  So, how does that happen?  I think the clear implication is that God will not hear, nor will He heed, the thoughtless and insensitive husband’s prayers. 

No big surprise here.  I get this.  I am a father with two daughters.  Thank the Lord, both of my sons-in-law are gentle men and treat our daughters kindly.  But think of it this way: A son-in-law, who is emotionally and verbally abusive of his wife, goes to her father, his father-in-law, to ask for a loan to buy himself a new pick up truck.  How do you think that would go over?  Listen, if I’m father of a mistreated and discontented wife, I would not give my son-in-law the time of day.  He would not get a favor from me; he might get a flogging… I conclude that, as a father with my daughters, I am a lot like God with His daughters! 

Bottom line: Any man who treats his wife badly, will definitely answer to her Heavenly Father, and possibly her earthly father.  Pray with me…

Father God, We praise you for being vigilant.  We praise you for being compassionate.  We praise you for being a God who has built Your wrath against sin into this life and the life to come.  In the name of Jesus, amen. 

Blessings,
Pastor Ken